Archangel's Shadows(28)
Sitting back up, he played with a blade he must’ve slipped out from his boot. “You must remember that many of my kind were born in a time when to be a family was to live in a single home, several generations one on top of the other, newborns sharing rooms with grandparents, and warriors seated side by side with younger siblings, cousins, and fosters. That is what they seek to recreate, for the old ones often find loneliness the worst pain of all.”
His words stopped Ashwini; she’d never considered things from that angle and it made a heartrending kind of sense. “I grew up like that,” she found herself saying when most of the time, she did her best not to think of the past. “My paternal grandparents lived with us, as did an aunt before she got married, and another who’d been through a divorce.” It had never been quiet in the Taj household.
Janvier’s expression was intent. “So you understand.”
“The need to create a family? Yes.” Wasn’t that what she’d done with the Guild when her own broke into too many pieces to put back together? “But that’s not what we saw today.”
“No.” He stared out toward the water. “Giorgio treats his women as pretty dolls. His to own, to dress, to bejewel. Marie May had such a fire in her when I first met her—that fire is now all focused on Giorgio. Soon she will forget her dreams.”
“And when she gets too old for him, he’ll nudge her out like he’s doing with Laura and Penelope.”
“Oui. What they see as kindness is simply Giorgio’s way of creating space for new playthings.”
Red in her vision at the memory of the smug bastard who, it was clear, would soon push poor, lovesick Brooke to the curb, she folded her arms. “Can you get the young ones out?”
“No.” Jaw tight, he said, “They are of age and the Tower cannot interfere in domestic arrangements without cause.” That fact clearly not sitting well with him, he swung his leg off the bike and came to stand beside her. “I’ll call Marie tomorrow and reiterate that she and the others can come to me at any time, but I can do nothing about their mental and emotional enslavement when they go into it with eyes wide open.”
“Five minutes alone with Brooke,” Ashwini said, “and I’d know for certain if she was telling the truth.” Memory echoes were the strongest in old ones like the angel Nazarach, but with a little more effort, Ashwini could pick them up from those under four hundred. The latter limitation was why she could continue to work as a hunter—it was extremely rare for the Guild to be contracted to hunt an older vamp. The angels usually took care of any problems at that level themselves.
Unfortunately, the limitation wasn’t set in stone. Janvier was opaque to her—had always been that way—but usually, the better she knew someone, the more chance she’d connect with them regardless of age. And every so often, even a young stranger would set off her senses, drag her under. It was why she was so careful about physical contact.
Janvier ran his knuckles down the line of her spine. “If you find darkness in Giorgio’s blood slave, it’ll live in you forever. No, I won’t permit this.”
“Since when do you have the right to ‘permit’ me anything?” she said, turning away.
He grabbed hold of one of her wrists, his grip gentle but unbreakable. “Who was he?”
Her response was instinctive, her mind shying away from the agony of it all. “None of your business.”
Hauling her to him, Janvier held her wrist against his chest, his heart pumping steady and strong under the thin barrier of the T-shirt, his body so warm she wanted to stretch out into it like a cat before a fire. “We are beyond that, and you know it. That’s why you’ve been running so hard from me.”